Out of the Shadows
by KatieByHerself
Summary: The sequel to "Out of the Water." James and Harry try to figure out if and how they can live with each other. It would probably help if James could tell Harry the truth. Slashy JamesXHarry.
1. Chapter 1

**1.**

James sat on a park bench, feeling the sun on his face and hands, and watched Cheryl chase Harry around the playground. The little girl dashed after her father, giggling hysterically and shrieking with joy, and Harry ran ahead of her, keeping his strides in check so that he never got too far ahead. He kept glancing over his shoulder, laughing himself, and he didn't seem to notice the appraising looks from the other parents in the park. No one seemed to exist for him except Cheryl.

As James watched, Harry stopped running and let Cheryl tackle him, knocking him to the ground. The little girl clambered all over him, yelling "I got you, Daddy, I got you!" and sticking her hands into Harry's jacket to tickle him. Harry laughed and tried half-heartedly to defend himself until they both collapsed in helpless giggles.

James felt pinpricks of tears in the corners of his eyes. Before she got sick, he and Mary had been trying to have a baby of their own. Maybe, in a different world, in a different time, that could have been him, playing with a child of his own while Mary watched and laughed.

He sighed deeply, fighting the tears. He had been crying too much lately, letting his emotions run away with him. For some reason, the sheer reality of the real world, after the dark and nightmarish landscape of Silent Hill, affected him more deeply than he could have imagined possible. Seeing the sun again, eating, sleeping without fear, being warm… they all seemed like incredible gifts. And Harry. Harry was the greatest gift of all.

Harry understood. Harry had been there, he knew about Silent Hill and he knew that James wasn't crazy, a point of view that James himself sometimes doubted. Was it possible to share delusions? He didn't think so, which meant that Harry was telling the truth when he said he had been to that place too. And yet he was so unbelievably normal, so… undamaged. He could work and take care of his daughter and now he was taking care of James too, and James just couldn't understand how he did it all. He was invulnerable, like a kind, patient hero, and James knew that he couldn't intrude on his hospitality forever, but the thought of leaving filled his gut with a horrible, writhing despair. He'd been sleeping on Harry's couch for a week now, and Harry hadn't mentioned wanting him to leave, but James knew that Harry would get tired of him eventually and he wanted to delay that moment for as long as possible. Forever, if he could.

The couch, that was another thing. James didn't mind sleeping there, but he remembered waking up that first morning in Harry's bed, with his arms wrapped around Harry. He remembered someone brushing his hair away from his face, and he remembered holding onto Harry and asking him to stay. It made James sick with embarrassment when he thought about it, not because of what he'd done but because of how much he wanted to do it again. Something about holding Harry had felt _right_, like it was meant to be, and he didn't think he could take it if Harry didn't feel the same way. And why would he, for Christ's sake? The man had a daughter, James had had a wife, were they really both so lonely that they'd share a bed with another guy just to feel some companionship, some warmth? And why did this whole fucked up situation feel so disloyal to Mary's memory?

Someone thrust something into James's hands.

He started, aware that he had gotten lost in his memories again and that the world had swum away while he thought. He didn't like when that happened, it was a little too much like the descending fog of Silent Hill. He looked down and saw that he was holding a juice box.

"It's lunchtime, James," Cheryl announced. She had climbed up onto the bench and was sitting next to him. James goggled at her for a minute, struck yet again at her perfect, innocent trust, and then looked around for Harry.

Harry was standing a few feet away, a blanket tucked under one arm and a cooler in his hand. He was watching James and Cheryl with a small smile on his face, and James was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of how handsome he looked. Harry wasn't particularly tall, and he was too thin, but he radiated kindness and warmth, and his face shone whenever he looked at Cheryl. James had noticed the way that all the mothers in the park stared at him whenever they came here with Cheryl, and he knew they were examining his sleek, dark hair, jutting cheekbones and graceful, lithe movements. Next to him, James felt like an awkward, hulking monstrosity, a hideously broken vestige that didn't belong on the landscape of this happy little family. He wondered, not for the first time, where Cheryl's mother was and why Harry didn't have a woman in his life.

"Don't you know how to open it?" Cheryl plucked his juice box out of his hands and expertly stabbed the straw into the opening, then handed it back. "It's hard sometimes. I like the boxes better than the silver bags, they're easier to open."

"Cheryl," Harry chided gently. "I'm sure James knows how to open a juice box."

"But, Daddy, he wasn't…"

"No, I didn't," James interrupted, not wanting the day disturbed with arguing. "Thank you, Cheryl."

She beamed up at him. "You're welcome!"

James caught Harry's eye. Harry smiled and shook his head. The motion made the sun glint off his dark hair and James suddenly found himself wondering what Harry's hair smelled like, and how it would feel to run his hand through it.

**2.**

They left the park after eating lunch, and James was absurdly touched when Cheryl took his hand as they crossed the street. She didn't let go when they were across, simply held on and continued chattering, directing her comments first to Harry and then to James. In the truck, on the way home, she leaned up against James and fell asleep.

Harry glanced over at both of them and smiled. "She likes you," he told James.

James wasn't quite sure how to respond. Why would anyone, anywhere, like him, let alone this sweet, innocent child?

Seeming to read his thoughts, Harry continued, "She doesn't think about things the way we do. She sees people the way they really are, sometimes better than they see themselves."

James grunted. "You make her sound like a prophet."

Harry laughed quietly. "No, not a prophet. Just someone who hasn't learned how to judge yet and wants the best for everyone she cares about." He paused for a minute, then added, "That includes you."

James laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "She doesn't know me very well."

"She knows you well enough," Harry told him.

Cheryl shifted in her sleep, and a small frown creased her features. "Don't fight…" she muttered.

"We're not fighting, sweetie," Harry said. "Go back to sleep."

"Daddy…?"

"Yes?"

"Why is James always so sad?"

Neither Harry nor James had an answer for that. Their eyes met from across the truck, and James was surprised to see the pain in Harry's.

Cheryl shifted again and drifted back into the deeper realms of sleep.

**3.**

Later that evening, after dinner (James was consistently surprised at how well Harry cooked; he himself could manage ramen and hotdogs and that was about it) and after Cheryl was in bed, Harry had sighed and pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge. James was completely shocked—he'd had no idea Harry ever touched alcohol.

Misinterpreting James's expression, Harry explained, "I love her with all my heart, but sometimes Cheryl just wears me out. Do you want a glass too?"

Normally James preferred beer (and over the last three years, hard liquor, drunk to excess), but Harry's wine was delicious, light and crisp and refreshing. Harry told him it was a German Riesling, and expressed the opinion that Californian wines were vulgar fruit-bombs and that if you wanted good wine you had to buy from Europe. James had laughed, surprised and amused at Harry's passion on the subject. Harry had laughed with him, and for just a moment James felt like they were part of the sweet, normal world, a world where Silent Hill never existed.

Now Harry was doing the dishes while James sat at the kitchen table, slightly tipsy and more than a little embarrassed at his complete ineptitude in the kitchen. He couldn't cook, he didn't know how to wash the dishes, he could barely boil water. Christ, he was so fucking helpless it was a miracle he hadn't starved to death after Mary died.

"Where's Cheryl's mom?" he asked abruptly, the wine having loosened his tongue.

Harry's spine stiffened a little, and his hands stopped moving for just a minute. Then he kept washing and said, "She's adopted."

"Really?" James furrowed his brow and took another slug of wine. "I thought they didn't adopt kids out to single men. Especially little girls."

This time Harry's spine really stiffened, and he hunched his shoulders over the sink. "I had a wife when I adopted her," he said quietly. "She died when Cheryl was just a baby."

"Oh, Christ, oh shit, I'm so sorry," James stammered. He could feel himself turning red and knew it wasn't just the alcohol. "God, I always put my foot in my mouth, I'm so…"

"No, no, it's okay," Harry reassured him, as if he was the one who had just said something stupid. "It was an honest question." He put a dish in the drying rack, and then asked hesitantly, "What happened to… Mary, I think her name was?"

James sighed, and felt the tears well up behind his eyes, the same way they always did when he thought about her. "She… she was my wife," he told Harry, staring deep into the empty depths of his wine glass. "About three years ago, she died. Lung cancer."

Harry sucked in his breath. "I'm so sorry. My dad died of lung cancer; it's a terrible way to go."

James nodded, fuzzily aware that he had never spoken to anyone about this as openly as he was speaking now. "It… it took a long time. She was sick… for so long. Towards the end… it was like she… she wasn't even my wife anymore…" and now he was openly sobbing, his face buried in his hands and his shoulders shaking. It felt like he was trying to weep his soul out into his hands, his rotten, damaged soul and maybe he'd be better off without it. Then he wouldn't have to feel this wrenching, aching loneliness all the time…

Suddenly he was aware of a hand on his back. It was Harry, awkwardly patting him and saying, "Hey, man, shhhh, shhhh, it's okay," and he put his head down on the table and wept into his arms. After all this time, why did it still hurt so bad? Harry stood next to him and stroked his back, letting him cry.

James cried for what felt like a long time, but eventually his tears dried up and he got control of himself again. Then he realized how anyone looking in on them would think that he and Harry were a couple in this position, and he sat up, letting Harry's hand slide off his back. Harry let him, and was that a flash of regret James saw cross his face? Could it be that Harry liked being close to him? James pushed that thought away; no one wanted to be close to James Sunderland anymore.

Harry went back to the sink. Once his back was to James and his hands were in the dishwater again, he said, "I'm so sorry for your loss. If I hadn't had Cheryl when my wife died… well, she made it easier. I had to be okay, to work through it, because she needed me. I'm so sorry you had to go through it alone."

James sniffed and gave a watery laugh. "Thanks. I'm sorry about your wife too."

They stayed in awkward but companionable silence until Harry pulled the plug in the sink and the water started swirling down the drain. Then he turned around and noticed that the wine bottle was empty. "Do you want some more?"

James smiled sadly. "Haven't I already cried enough for one night?"

"Cheryl told me once that no one cries unless they really need to," Harry said seriously. "I think she's right about that."

James picked up his wine glass and tilted it towards him. "In that case, bottoms up."

Harry turned back towards the sink and opened the highest shelf in the kitchen. He fumbled around in it for a minute, and then cursed under his breath. "The bottle's too far back," he told James. "A little help?"

Being tall was something James _could_ help with. He got up, swaying a little drunkenly on his feet, and walked over to the shelf. He reached over Harry and grasped the cool, round bottle in one hand.

Suddenly, he was aware of how close he was to the other man. His chest was lightly touching Harry's back, and his arm followed the line of Harry's upwards until their hands were right next to each other in the shelf. He noticed how much broader his shoulders were than Harry's, and how badly he suddenly wanted to fold Harry in his arms and just hold him. The back of Harry's head was right near James's face, and James caught a whiff of Harry's hair. It smelled like hair gel, freshly mown grass, and sunshine, even though they'd been back from the park for hours.

James took a deep, shuddering breath, completely frozen and unsure what to do, and then Harry took a step backwards so that his back bumped up against James's chest.

Hardly aware of what he was doing, James curled an arm around Harry's waist. Harry brought his hand down from the shelf and rested both of them on James's forearm. His face still pointing away from James's, he leaned back into the other man's chest and sighed quietly.

James let go of the wine bottle. He brought his other arm down and hooked it in a V across Harry's chest, holding on to his shoulder. Harry moved his left hand up and put it over James's, then turned his face towards the other man and rested his forehead on James's jaw.

James held on to Harry for dear life, wishing he never had to let go. This was the closest they'd been since that first night, and the closest he'd been to another person since Mary's death. It was amazing, he thought, how he had managed to convince himself that he didn't need this, that he could live without this closeness, only to be reminded so quickly and so painfully that his life was emptier without it. So much emptier…

Harry shifted in his arms, turning around a little and looking up so that he could meet James's eyes. "You… uh… you don't have to sleep on the couch tonight," he said, and immediately turned bright red.

James's eyes widened with surprise, which Harry misread. "I mean, unless you want to," he backpedaled, getting more flustered and turning more red with each word.

"No," James assured him, feeling slightly strange that he was the one reassuring Harry instead of the other way around. "No, I'll… uh… I'll sleep in the bed tonight." Now he could feel himself turning red too, and a small, warm ball of happiness growing in his stomach. So that's what happiness felt like; he had almost forgotten.

"Uh… I need to write for a while first," Harry told him, breaking eye contact and looking down in embarrassment.

"Sure," James said, and let him go. The two men drew apart, and the kitchen seemed suddenly colder and smaller than it had been just moments before.

**4.**

James lay on the couch, a book in his hands. Harry had given it to him a few hours before, admitting that it was one of his books, written under a pseudonym. James usually wasn't much of a reader, but he was enjoying this book immensely. Harry's story was interesting, his characters were likable, and James could see Harry's personality behind each one of them. The warm ball of happiness and excitement still glowed and purred in his stomach, and maybe that made him feel more charitable towards an activity he normally didn't enjoy too. Besides, and he hesitated to admit this, reading one of Harry's books made him feel closer to the author, and he liked the implied intimacy.

Harry sat across the room, tapping away at an old computer and muttering to himself. Actually, James realized, he hadn't heard the tap of computer keys for quite a while now. He'd been too caught up in the book to realize it.

Smiling to himself (who would have thought it, James Sunderland, losing track of time while reading?), he put the book down and sat up to look over at Harry. The warm ball suddenly extinguished and died.

Harry was asleep at the computer desk, his head in his arms. The computer monitor cast a ghostly light over him, turning his hair gray and blanching his skin to a pale white.

James silently cursed himself. Harry had just been humoring him in the kitchen, he was way too nice a guy to openly reject him, and now he was getting out of his offer by choosing to sleep at the computer desk. James couldn't blame him, really, couldn't even summon the energy to be mad at him; Harry was too great a guy to be soiled by closeness to someone like him. He was a fool to think that Harry had meant it when he offered to share his bed.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid!" James muttered between clenched teeth. He made a fist and slammed it onto his thigh.

The smacking sound startled Harry awake, and he looked up through sleepy eyes. "James?" he asked, his voice thick with sleep.

James nodded curtly at him, still too mad at himself to speak.

"Why're you on the couch?" Harry asked dozily. "Don't you want to come to bed?"

The warm ball came back to life. "Do you mean it?" James asked him.

"Said I did… course I meant it…" Harry mumbled, and then he was asleep again. He never seemed to realize that he wasn't in bed himself.

Did Harry really mean it? James wondered, but he got up off the couch and walked over to the computer desk. He saved Harry's file (but not before reading a few sentences) and shut down the computer. Then he gently stroked the side of Harry's face. "Come on, Harry. Wake up, it's time for bed."

Harry moved his head into the warmth of James's hand, but he showed no sign of waking up. James thought for a moment, then reached down and carefully picked Harry up.

The smaller man was lighter than James expected. Harry woke up a little at the sensation of being lifted, and threw an arm around James's neck before falling back to sleep. His head lolled on James's shoulder, and James marveled at how perfectly it fit in the spot between his shoulder and his neck.

Using the light from his reading lamp to guide him, James carried Harry to the bedroom and carefully laid him on the bed. Harry was as loose and boneless as a ragdoll; the day at the park must have really exhausted him.

James quietly stripped down to his boxers (Harry had been kind enough to take him shopping on one of his first days here, since he arrived with only the clothes on his back), and then stood looking down at Harry, thinking. He carefully moved one of Harry's arms so it was out at a right angle from his body. Then he slipped into bed next to him, burrowing up against the other man and tucking himself into Harry's side.

The motion woke up Harry, at least a little bit, and he smiled sleepily at James, then wrapped his arm around James's shoulders. He leaned in, brushed James's forehead with his lips, and was sleeping again.

James smiled in the darkness, feeling the heat of Harry's kiss against his skin. He cuddled as close to Harry as he could get, touched his lips to the other man's neck, and then dropped off to sleep himself, feeling that, for the first time in years, he could sleep without fearing what waited for him in his dreams.

**5.**

James woke up to the feeling of someone touching his hair.

He didn't move at first, pretending to still be asleep. He was afraid that if Harry knew he was awake, he would stop stroking his hair, and James didn't want it to end quite yet. Harry's touch was so light, so gentle, it reminded James of the times that butterflies had landed on his skin. As soon as he thought that, the hand on his head stopped.

"James?"

Dammit! James reluctantly opened his eyes to find Harry smiling at him. "How did you know I was awake?"

"You smiled."

They were still entwined; it seemed like they'd slept the whole night in each other's arms. Harry was still on his back with one arm around James, but James had moved during the night so that he was more on his stomach, half on top on Harry, with one leg between the other man's legs. Suddenly embarrassed by his morning erection, which was pressing noticeably into Harry's leg, James sprang backwards to the other side of the bed.

"Uh… this is okay, right?" James asked, trying to cover his mortification.

Harry frowned at him, looking confused and a little hurt. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"You… you fell asleep last night… I thought…" James stammered, searching for words to describe what had happened, gesturing his hands frantically.

"James," Harry said sternly, propping himself up on one elbow. "I fall asleep at my computer all the time. It's a bad habit I picked up in college. It doesn't mean anything."

"So…" Hope fluttered in James's chest, an emotion so alien to him that he hardly recognized it for what it was. "So you don't mind that I'm here? You didn't change your mind?"

Harry sighed and sat up, dangling his feet over the side of the bed, his back to James. "Do you want me to?"

"What?" Of all possible responses, this was not the one James had been expecting.

Harry hunched his shoulders forward, and James realized that he could count each one of the other man's vertebrae. "I don't play games, James. When I say something I mean it." He looked over his shoulder and caught James's eyes. "Do you want me to hurt you? Do you want me to push you away? Because if that will make you happy, I'll do it."

James shook his head, more sad and confused than ever. "No. No, that's not what I want at all."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want… I want…" James struggled to articulate what he was feeling. "I don't know what I want!" he finally cried. "This is all so fucked up, so weird, and I don't know what exactly I want, but I don't want to be lonely anymore!" He hung his head, staring at his heads that twisted and twined in his lap. "Being here… with you and Cheryl… it's the first time I haven't been lonely in a long time," he admitted, practically choking on his words.

He felt a hand on his chin, and then Harry turned his head so they were meeting each other's gaze. Harry leaned across the bed, propping himself up on his knees and one hand, and his blue eyes burned into James's green ones. James had never felt so scrutinized, or (and he hated to admit it) so aroused before in his life.

"Then stop. Pushing us. Away!" Harry told him, enunciating every syllable.

The moment stretched. Time seemed to stop, elongate. James swore he could see every fleck of dust in the air, every hair on Harry's sleep-mussed head, every separate line of color in Harry's irises. Then, not knowing what he was doing until he was doing it, James leaned forward and kissed Harry on the lips.

Time snapped forward again. Harry froze for just a split second, which James recognized now as uncertainty and not rejection, and then he moved forward into James's kiss and into his embrace. They tumbled sideways onto the bed, and James was holding Harry, and then Harry was holding James, and then it didn't matter because they were holding each other, kissing and laughing in the early morning sunlight.


	2. Chapter 2

**1.**

He was in that place again, that dark tomb of a building. The walls dripped with rust and grime, and an industrial fan near the end of the hallway whirred and turned slowly, barely stirring the stale air. A thick, sticky coat of blood trailed off towards where the hallway turned, as if something had dragged a body through here recently.

He tried to catch his breath, tried to keep his rising panic under control. He knew what to do, he remembered this; if only he could keep the yammering, shrieking panic under control, he could solve this, he could fix it, make it right. Concentrate! Focus! Stop acting like a goddamn little girl!

Biting his lower lip hard enough to make it bleed, he forced the panic away to a dark corner of his mind, where it screamed and beat at the barrier he created to contain it. He closed his eyes, shutting out the grim hallway, and focused as hard as he could.

There! There it was! He heard it now—a light, feminine laugh floated to his ears. But where? Where was she? God, she must be so scared, so alone in this awful place… if only he could get to her…

He curled his hand into a fist and punched himself in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Focus, goddammit! Stop dwelling on it and fucking focus! Where was the laughter coming from?

He opened his eyes and _saw_ it; he saw it, just for moment, the little flip of pink fabric, like a woman in a long skirt had turned the corner of the hallway just before he opened his eyes.

He took off after her, running with all his might. The hallway wasn't that long, he could catch up to her, find her, save her. He turned the corner, expecting to find her there, waiting for him…

And nothing. Another long, deserted hallway, filthy and stinking, long-abandoned. God, who did this, who just abandoned an entire town and left it to rot? But there! That tantalizing flip of fabric again, that faint hint of laughter… he was running again, chasing after the sound, but this time he didn't stop when he reached the corner, he simply turned it and pounded off after her.

Because it had to be her, it had to be! Who else would be waiting for him here? Who else even knew about this place but the two of them?

He ran and ran, his heart thundering in his chest and his lungs rasping from the effort, and that made him sure that this wasn't a dream, you didn't get tired in dreams, you could run forever. If this wasn't a dream, that meant she was so close, and why did she keep teasing him, keep slipping away? A lance of anger stabbed through him; why wouldn't she slow down, why wouldn't she _wait_?

He heard something else now, another sound rising above the cacophony of his footsteps and the faint sounds of laughter. Coming from behind him, a slow, dragging sound, like someone scraping a heavy, metallic point across concrete… he glanced over his shoulder, the panic suddenly awake again and fighting to break free.

Nothing. The hallway was empty behind him, the hallway was empty in front of him, he was alone with these sounds, with these ghosts.

No! She was real, she was here, if he just ran a little harder, a little faster, and stayed ahead of whatever was making that dragging sound, he would find her! He would find her and they could find their way out together! And this time, at the end of the hallway, was that a hand? A slim, white hand, flitting at him in a wave half-remembered?

He kept running, desperate to catch up, desperate to stay ahead of the dragging noise. He ran until his legs trembled with exhaustion and his lungs heaved almost uselessly on the heavy, stagnant air. The laughter, the pink fabric, never got any closer, no matter how hard he tried. If anything, it got fainter and further away the more he ran.

Finally, he stopped, bent-double and gasping, unable to run anymore. "Wait," he panted, bracing himself on the wall with one hand. "Wait for me…" but the laughter was gone, the pink skirt was moving away from him, ever farther away.

He fell to his knees, trying to get his breathing under control, trying to will himself to get up, to keep following her, and this time he wouldn't stop, he wouldn't let the _weakness_ overtake him again, he'd master the coward within, he'd catch up…

He froze, suddenly unable to move. The dragging noise was louder now, closer, and now he could hear footsteps, the footsteps of whatever _thing_ made that sound.

He scrambled awkwardly to his feet and forced himself forward, not daring to look behind him and see whatever monstrosity moved and lurked in the shadows. But he was tired now, exhausted, and he couldn't move as fast as he had before, and the dragging, shuffling noises behind him were gaining.

The panic broke free in his mind, filling him with frantic, desperate terror. The terror was so great, so overpowering, that he lost all coordination and caught his ankle with his other foot. He crashed, full-length, prone, onto the hallway's filthy floor.

He tried to get up, tried to pull himself forward on his elbows, his legs gone weak and useless in the extremity of his terror. The dragging was so close now, right behind him…

Something grabbed his ankles and started pulling him backwards. He scrabbled on the floor, trying to find purchase, finding nothing to hold onto. Moaning deep in his throat, his mind shrieking with panic like a siren, he glanced over his shoulder and saw a pair of hands in grimy white gloves holding his ankles and pulling him into the darkness.

Suddenly, roughly, whatever was holding his ankles flipped him over. He landed hard, his breath knocked out of him again in a brief gasp. His eyes, frantic and rolling, caught sight of something gleaming in the shadows, something bright and metal, and a pair of dark, heavy-looking boots planted near his own feet. He was dimly aware of the sound of heavy, deep breathing that was not his own, and of the smell of blood and rust blending together. He tried to see the terror, see whatever it was that had grabbed him, aware that knowing would be horrible, but that not knowing would drive him stark raving mad.

Two hands, wearing dirty gloves and attached to arms the color of a corpse, shot out from the shadows and closed around his throat. As he was lifted, struggling and choking, into the air, the thing that held him started to step out of the darkness.

**2.**

Harry woke up to a fist hitting him in the chest.

Jolted out of sleep, he realized that James was thrashing around on the other side of the bed like he was being tortured, his arms flailing in front of him in defensive gestures and his legs jerking like he was trying to run. Harry fumbled for the bedside light, which seemed to have shifted stealthily to another position from the time he turned it off last night. Finally catching its cord and bathing the room in dim, warm light, he sat up and turned to James.

James was still caught in his dreams, his face a frozen rictus of terror and his limbs moving in disjointed, uncoordinated swipes. One of his fists flailed outward and nearly caught Harry in the face; instinctively, Harry grabbed James's wrist and held the arm still.

"James!" he yelled, completely forgetting about Cheryl across the hallway. "James, wake up!"

James jerked his wrist out of Harry's grasp; his skin was slick with cold sweat and he was too slippery to hold onto. However, Harry's hold had changed the path of his fist, and he punched himself in the collarbone. He sat up with a gasp like someone electrocuted, his forehead passing a fraction of an inch from Harry's nose. Harry felt James's sweat-dampened hair slap him across the face, and was dimly grateful that he'd been spared a broken nose.

James turned to Harry, and Harry recognized the stark terror in his partner's eyes (partner, now there was a funny word choice, his mind chided him). "James, James, it's okay," he cried, reaching out and catching hold of James's upper arms. "It's okay, you were dreaming, everything's okay!"

James snapped himself backwards, away from Harry's hands. "Don't!" he gasped out, his eyes rolling in his head. "Don't! Stay away!"

"Okay, okay!" Harry held up his hands, fingers spread, palms facing towards James. "It's okay, James, it's okay, it's just me! It's just Harry!"

For some reason, the sound of Harry's name seemed to calm James down a little bit. His eyes stopped rolling and he tried to focus them, squinting into the lamplight that must have seemed dazzling after the darkness of his dreams. "Ha… Harry?" he asked, his voice calmer but still stretched as tight as a rubber band.

"Yeah, yeah, it's me, it's Harry, it's _okay_ James, God, you scared the life out of me," Harry babbled, trying to keep James focused on the sound of his voice and not on the nightmare he'd been having. "You're awake now, you're okay, nothing's wrong…"

James stared at him, and Harry saw the recognition in his eyes. James suddenly pulled his knees up and leaned forward over them. His face in his hands, shaking like a leaf in the wind, he whispered, "Fuck."

Harry reached out a hand, figuring it was probably safe to touch James now.

"Daddy?" Cheryl's voice was frightened and on the verge of tears.

Harry swiveled his head towards the door so fast that he almost gave himself whiplash. Cheryl stood in the doorway, clutching a stuffed animal, her small face scrunched up and nearly weeping. Her long white t-shirt, one of Harry's old ones, glowed in the dim light. "Is everything okay, Daddy?" she asked.

"Yeah, sweetie, everything's okay," he told her, forcing himself to smile reassuringly. "James just had a nightmare, that's all."

Cheryl peered into the room, scrutinizing them, and Harry was suddenly aware that both he and James were shirtless. Cheryl had seen them both shirtless before (Harry many times, in fact, during last summer's swimming lessons), but never shirtless together and sharing a bed. Harry silently prayed that she was too young to make the obvious connection; he didn't think he was up to explaining what was going on to her and comforting James at the same time (What connection? his mind teased him. Is there a connection between you and James? And that word 'partner' that you used earlier; was that a Freudian slip or did you mean something else by it? Come on, Harry, you're the author, explain yourself in five hundred words or less and in the kind of language a seven year old can understand).

Cheryl sighed. "I heard yelling. You scared me."

"I'm sorry we scared you, sweetie. You know what it's like to have nightmares, right?"

She nodded, and then abruptly turned around and flounced back to her bedroom.

Harry sighed deeply, then turned back to James.

James still had his face covered with his hands, but he had stopped shaking and was breathing at a more normal rate. Harry realized with surprise that, in the sudden stillness left by Cheryl's departure, he could hear James's heartbeat, which was pounding as hard as if he'd just run a marathon.

"_Are_ you okay?" he asked, speaking in a low voice, aware that Cheryl might still be listening.

James shook his head, and his whole body shivered. "Most godawful dream…" he said, his voice muffled by his hands. "That place… back in that place…"

Harry started, realizing what James was talking about. He always thought of it as _that place_ too, as if calling it by name gave it a certain dark power. He shivered himself, as if the mere mention of it caused a draught to ripple through the room.

The bed sank to one side and then shook; Harry turned to see that Cheryl was back and had climbed onto the bed. She crawled over him nonchalantly and planted herself between them, right next to James. She put her little hand out and started gently shaking James's shoulder.

"James… James, it's me, Cheryl…"

"Sweetie, now might not be the best time," Harry said, reaching for her to pull her back, but then James looked up from his hands and met Cheryl's gaze. His eyes were red-rimmed and haunted, but he obviously recognized the little girl and tried to smile at her.

"What's up, Little Bit?" he asked, using the nickname he'd given Cheryl about a week ago.

"Here." She handed him a ragged stuffed bunny. James took it, mystified. "It's Mr. Hopper," Cheryl explained. "He keeps nightmares away. He told me that you need him more than I do tonight." She paused, and Harry thought that maybe she was doubting Mr. Hopper's wisdom; Cheryl had enough trouble of her own with nightmares. "If you hold Mr. Hopper all night, you won't have any more bad dreams," she instructed. "You understand?"

James nodded, looking down at the bunny that was dwarfed in his big hands.

"Good." Cheryl got up on her knees and kissed James on the cheek. James jerked his head to one side, looking at her in surprise, but she didn't notice because she had turned to Harry and was kissing him on the cheek as well. Then she clambered out of the bed (managing to knee Harry in the thigh on the way), said "Goodnight, Daddy, goodnight, James," and left the room, closing the door behind her.

James stared at Harry for a moment, then stared at the bunny in his hands. Harry cautiously put a hand on his shoulder. "You should feel honored," he said quietly. "She doesn't give Mr. Hopper to just anyone."

James's shoulder trembled under his hand, and then James was weeping, deep, heart-felt sobs that sounded like they came from the pit of his soul. Harry put his arms around him, and James buried his face in Harry's chest, still holding Mr. Hopper, and wept for a long, long time.

**3.**

God, he was an idiot.

James felt the old self-loathing surge up in him, overwhelming everything else. He had woken up Harry, taken a little girl's security toy, and kept everyone up in the middle of the night because of some bad dream that he could barely remember now. He had the feeling that he didn't want to remember, but he pushed that thought away; the bad dream didn't matter, it didn't change the fact that he was a selfish asshole and he was amazed that Harry and Cheryl still put up with him.

Harry was asleep again. He had held James while he cried, talked to him quietly and comfortingly, and had then curled up beside him when James said that he thought he could get back to sleep. The idea of getting back to sleep was a lie; James knew he'd be up all night, watching the dawn cast its early morning light across the walls. He was afraid to fall back asleep, and that was the damnable truth. But he'd already taken too much from Harry, he didn't need to steal a night's sleep as well. So he'd lied, something he was very good at, and Harry had drifted back to sleep almost immediately.

Harry's face was smooth and untroubled in repose, his skin remarkably unlined for a man rapidly approaching middle-age. He had his head on James's chest, which was unusual in itself, and his head rose and fell gently with James's breathing. Mr. Hopper rested across James's stomach, seeming to observe them both with his black, shoe-button eyes.

James watched the pearly gray light grow on the wall, seething inwardly, furious at himself. What kind of man has nightmares that make him wake everyone up and then cries about it? Why was he so weak? Harry was able to put it all behind him, Harry had moved on, Harry didn't dream about that place anymore… did he?

James frowned, his ranting thoughts stopped short. Did Harry dream about it? If he did, he never said anything, never woke up screaming and thrashing. Harry slept like the dead every night, falling asleep in front of his computer so often that James carrying him to bed was fast becoming a nightly ritual. How did he do it? How did he get free from that place's grasp?

James sighed and closed his eyes. He would ask Harry in the morning. The faster he got himself under control, the faster he could go away, leave Harry and Cheryl in peace and stop disturbing their perfect lives with his fucked-up presence. He was like an acid, eating away and destroying everything around him. They'd be better off without him, he was sure of that.

Thinking self-destructive thoughts, James slipped into sleep again.

James woke up to shaking from small hands. "Wake up, James, wake up!" Cheryl sang, her voice bright and cheerful. "Daddy says it's time for breakfast!"

"I said it's time for _your_ breakfast, I told _you_ to leave James alone!" Harry's voice floated in from the kitchen.

Cheryl leaned in and whispered in James's ear. "I wanted to make sure you were feeling better," she informed him. "Did Mr. Hopper help?"

James smiled at her, certain she could see right through him. "He sure did, Little Bit," he said, and handed her the toy. "Thank you for letting me borrow him."

Cheryl beamed at him, then scrambled off the bed and towards the kitchen. "Daddy, James is awake now, he can have breakfast with us!" he heard her shout.

Groaning, James sat up and put his head in his hands. He felt scratchy, out-of-sorts, and he was still disgusted with himself. In other words, a typical morning. He scrounged around in the hamper that was serving as his dresser, found a shirt, pulled it on and then slouched out to the kitchen. If he stayed in here much longer (actually, what he wanted to do was pull the pillow over his head and die of embarrassment and shame), he knew that Cheryl would come looking for him again.

Cheryl grinned at him from the kitchen table, already looking neat and crisp in her school uniform, halfway through a stack of pancakes. Harry stood at the stove, expertly flipping a new stack; he was already dressed, freshly shaven, his hair combed into its usual sleekness. James felt a fresh wave of anger at himself; they were both ready to face the day, and he had the audacity to join them while still looking like a bum in his pajama bottoms and t-shirt. He flopped onto a chair and kept his head down, far too mortified to meet either of their eyes.

Harry set a plate of pancakes and a cup of coffee in front of him. "I told her to let you sleep, but she insisted that breakfast wouldn't be the same without you," he told James.

"It wouldn't!" Cheryl piped up.

"Probably not," James muttered. "It would be better."

Cheryl gasped, stricken. "James, that's not true! I like having you eat breakfast with us," she assured him.

James looked at her out of the corner of his eye. The look on her face seemed genuine; besides, how good were little girls at lying? He wasn't sure, but he didn't think they were criminal masterminds who could lie so convincingly. "Thank you," he said grunted, and then attacked his pancakes in an attempt to mask the confusing and contradictory feelings that were rolling around in his gut.

He knew Harry was looking at him with concern. He ignored him.

**4.**

At first, Harry wasn't sure he'd heard him correctly. "I'm sorry?"

"How do you get free from it?" James repeated, staring into his coffee cup. Cheryl was gone, packaged off to school, and the two men were alone in the kitchen. "How did you make it let you go?"

Somehow, Harry knew exactly what he was talking about. "What makes you think it did?"

James looked up sharply, his eyes narrowed and angry. "Of course it did! Look at the beautiful, normal life you and Cheryl have! You don't have nightmares, you don't feel bad all the time, you don't hate yourself…"

"Sometimes I do," Harry said quietly, bringing James up short.

"What?" he blurted. "No, you don't! You're so… so… normal!"

Harry sighed and sat down across from James. He was vividly reminded of their first morning together; somehow, they always ended up at the kitchen table when it came time to discuss that place. "Do you have any idea how lonely I was before I fished you out of the lake?" he asked. "No, of course you don't," he continued, raising a hand to silence James's protests. "James, before you showed up, I'd drive out to the lake at least three times a week. I'd park there, and wonder. I'd wonder what would happen if I drove across the bridge and just… just let Silent Hill take me. Sometimes… some days… that seemed like a pretty good option."

James shook his head. "No. No, I don't believe you."

"It's true," Harry assured him. "And James… I think if you keep beating yourself up, if you keep punishing yourself… someday you'll want to let it take you too."

James laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "Maybe that would be a good thing."

"Dammit, James!" Harry slapped the table with frustration, making their coffee cups jump. "Don't you get it? Don't you know how good you've been for Cheryl and me?"

James wouldn't meet his eyes. "I'm not good for anybody. I never have been."

"I haven't driven out to the bridge once since you got here. I haven't wanted to! I haven't… I haven't needed to! That power, that weird pull that place has, it's not as strong when you're here. You… you make me want to keep going." Harry sat back, spent, speechless, amazed at what he'd just said. James still wasn't looking at him, but Harry could see a slight flush on James's cheeks, as if he was pleased with what Harry had said about him.

"James," Harry asked, unsure if he wanted to talk about this but knowing that he had to ask. "Why were you in Silent Hill in the first place?"

James sighed, hunching his shoulders in a defensive posture Harry was beginning to know well. "Mary and I… we had our honeymoon there."

Harry couldn't help himself. "You had your honeymoon _there_?"

"It doesn't always look like that," James answered, a little sharply. "When you're happy, it's beautiful. We were happy there. We… we had a great time."

James sighed, and scrubbed his hand over his face and through his hair. Harry was momentarily distracted by the way James's hair flopped backed into his eyes; he wanted to reach across the table and brush it to one side, but he knew if he did James would never talk about this again. So he kept his hands on the table and listened.

"After our honeymoon, about six months later, Mary started getting sick," James continued. "The doctors said she had probably been getting sick for a long time, but it didn't… it didn't start to really affect her until we got married. Until we started… trying to start a family." He looked up at Harry, stricken. "She didn't get sick until she was with me."

Harry opened his mouth to protest, to tell James that that wasn't how cancer worked, but James held up a hand to stop him. "Don't interrupt me. Please, Harry, I… I only want to tell this story once."

"She went through three rounds of chemotherapy. That's all they let you have; if you go through chemo three times and the cancer doesn't go into remission, then…" James waved his hand to one side. "Then it's not going to. I… I couldn't afford a home nurse to take care of her. I had to put her in hospice care. The doctors told me that she had weeks left, at most." He looked up at Harry, his eyes bleak and hopeless. "She lived in that horrible place for six months."

James suddenly grabbed out, latched onto Harry's hands like a drowning man. "I couldn't afford any better!" he pleaded, his voice tearing with old sadness. "I was already working two jobs, picking up overtime whenever I could, and coming to see her whenever I had an hour or two free. She… she said she understood, but… the sicker she got, the more she wanted me there with her…"

"And I couldn't!" he cried, and Harry felt pinpricks of tears in his own eyes at the anguish in James's voice. "I could barely afford to keep her there as it was, if I wasn't working she would have gotten turned out, and then she wouldn't have had anyone to take care of her, or any pills to make the pain go away…"

"And in the end, the pills stopped working," James said, his voice soft again, but he was holding Harry's hands so tight that the muscles and bones ground together. Harry, caught up in James's story, barely noticed. "They stopped working, and she was always in pain, horrible pain, and… and the girl I married was gone. I'd go there to see her, and she'd be so… so angry, so hateful, just this rage-filled skeleton in a bed, and I'd wonder what happened to the girl I fell in love with, where did she go? And then… one night, I came to see her, and…"

James stopped, pausing for so long that Harry thought he had lost his train of thought. "And she was dead," he finished abruptly, with finality. "She was dead, and three years later I got a letter from her, a letter telling me to come to our special place in Silent Hill, and… and I couldn't find it."

James caught Harry's eyes again, and Harry almost had to turn away from the pain and anguish in James's stare. "I couldn't find our special place, I couldn't remember, all I could remember was the way she died, the way she didn't get well and the way the woman I loved disappeared, and then… and then the fog came, and the things, and… and…" he nearly choked on the words, "and then I was driving off the bridge, and you were pulling me out of my car."

Harry sat silent, nearly crying himself, after James was done telling his story. James's grip on his hands had lessened, and James was sitting numbly in front on him, his own eyes red but dry. Harry had a feeling that there was more to the story than James was telling him (like where that letter came from, for instance), but he knew better than to push the issue. James had told as much as he could, and it was enough. Maybe, maybe now that it was out in the open, he could start to heal from the old wounds he had been carrying for so long.

Harry gently squeezed James's fingers. "I'm so, so sorry," he said softly, and was surprised by the little catch in his voice. "I can't imagine what that must have been like. No wonder you're hurting so badly."

"You… you don't hate me?" James asked, his voice pleading.

"No, of course not," Harry answered, a bit surprised by the question.

James looked up and caught Harry's eyes, and staring into James's eyes was like staring into the abyss. "You will," he said.


	3. Chapter 3

**1.**

"Daddy?"

"Hmmm?" Harry Mason tore his eyes away from the computer screen to look down at his daughter. He should have known better than to try and get any serious work done before Cheryl went to bed, but the novel that had been languishing on his hard drive for months had finally started to pick up steam. And once it got going, it came at him like a freight-train—he found himself working late into the night, typing away until his eyes were red and scratchy, until his fingers ached from feverish activity, until he fell asleep in front of the screen, sometimes in mid-sentence.

He had a fairly good idea what had inspired the sudden burst of creativity. He was well aware that he wrote better when he was happy, and he was starting to learn how to be happy again. He had forgotten what it was like to have another adult in his life; short answer, it was amazing, and the happiness had bled into all aspects of his days. He was writing faster and better than he had in a long time, he was being a better father, he was finally getting things done that he had put off for far too long.

"Daddy!"

"Yes!" Harry snapped himself out of his thoughts and focused his attention on his daughter. Cheryl was sprawled on the floor near his feet, a clutch of coloring books and an assortment of crayons spread out around her. He noticed, not for the first time, that Cheryl was turning to the back of the coloring books and drawing her own pictures on the blank pages instead of coloring the images provided. There were also several pieces of printer paper scattered around and covered with bright doodles. "I can buy you a book with blank pages if you just want to draw your own pictures, you know."

Cheryl brightened. "Really? They make books like that?"

"Yes, they do. I'll get you one the next time I go to the store." It would be cheaper than buying coloring books for their last few pages, that was for certain. "Now what's on your mind, kiddo?" Harry hoped it wasn't anything too complicated; he had been in the middle of a confrontation scene and wanted to get back to it.

"Oh. Um…" Cheryl looked down, unusually shy. "Is James going to run away?"

Shit. That was complicated; in fact, she couldn't have picked anything more complicated if she had tried. "Why do you think James is going to run away?" he asked, stalling for time while he tried to get his own thoughts on the subject organized.

Cheryl shrugged, clearly struggling to verbalize her thoughts. "He's… he's so sad all the time. And he has nightmares almost every night, and sometimes… sometimes he looks like he just wants to run and run and run…"

Harry pushed his chair away from the computer and spread his arms, aware that his daughter was on the verge of tears. "Come here, sweetie," he offered, and Cheryl immediately climbed up onto his lap. She was really getting too big to fit very well, and she was definitely heavy enough to put both his legs to sleep, but Harry knew how comforting she found sitting on him. In all honesty, it was comforting to him too. It reminded him that, even though she was getting older and more independent every day, she still needed him, at least for a little longer.

"James…" he started, and then stopped. Cheryl was looking up at him intently, expecting an answer. "James is…" he tried again. How on earth could he explain this to a child when he barely understood it himself? "James has a lot to be sad about," he finished lamely.

"Doesn't he like staying here with us?"

Did he? Sometimes Harry wasn't sure. James was so damn moody, so changeable and unpredictable, that Harry could never get a read on him. Sometimes James acted like being in Harry's home was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and then other times he acted like he couldn't stand being there and wanted to get away as quickly as he could. The truly frustrating thing was that James didn't seem to be aware of how his self-hatred leaked out and affected everyone around him, particularly Cheryl, who didn't understand a complex emotion like self-loathing and interpreted it as anger. Harry, on the other hand, was vaguely grateful that James had told him about his wife, and that he now knew James was grappling with depression; depression Harry could understand. Before he knew better, he'd had vague notions that James was dealing with something much more sinister, like schizophrenia or even a full-blown psychosis. Self-hatred was bad enough; psychosis would have been unacceptable.

Then there were the problems in the bedroom. Those weren't helping. James had been there for almost a month, and while they had gotten very good at cuddling and kissing (second base, Harry recalled), they couldn't seem to progress any further. They'd reach a point where they were both ready to explode, ready for the next step… and then they'd both freeze. Neither of them had ever been with another man, and Harry at least had no idea how to proceed past a certain point. It was getting incredibly frustrating, like being locked in a desperate teenage relationship, and James had gotten up to excuse himself to the bathroom several times during their evenings together. It was like they were both waiting for the other one to magically know what to do next, which, now that he thought about it, was completely ridiculous and causing all the problems.

"I think he does, sweetie," Harry said slowly, talking more to himself than Cheryl, "but James has a lot of things he's thinking about right now, and we have to be patient with him."

"Is he thinking about his wife?"

Harry gaped at her. "Did James tell you about that?"

She shook her head. "He calls out for Mary when he's having bad dreams. Was that his wife's name?"

Amazed at how perceptive she was, Harry nodded. "Yes, Mary was his wife's name, and yes, he does think about her all the time."

"Why would he think about something that makes him so sad?"

"Sometimes grown-ups do that," Harry told her, aware that this was a lame and unsatisfying answer, although he really didn't have a better one. "You'll understand when you're older."

Cheryl sighed and slid off his lap. Harry grimaced, feeling the bright tingles that signified his sleeping legs were starting to wake up. She plopped back down over her books and crayons, but not before asking, "Do you think James would tell us before he ran away?"

"I hope so, sweetie," Harry answered before turning back to his computer screen, a frown creasing his brow line. "I really, really hope so."

**2.**

"Ah HA! Got you!" James triumphantly pulled the wire free and held it up for closer examination. Harry's truck had developed an annoying rattle over the last few days, and while Harry seemed inclined to ignore it, James recognized the sound as something that could get very, very serious very, very fast. He had been shocked at Harry's lack of knowledge about cars, as well as Harry's toolbox, which consisted of a hammer, a Phillip's head screwdriver, and some duct tape.

Harry had shrugged sheepishly when confronted. "If you take good care of things, they don't break," he had explained. James could admit that there was a certain logic to that, but all the same, he had spent the last three hours elbow-deep in the truck engine, hunting down the rattle.

It felt good to be working with his hands again. Actually, it felt great. For as long as James could remember, he had been fascinated by engines, by gears, by how things fit together to create a running mechanism. One of his earliest memories was of making his mother cry when she had walked in on him taking apart a radio that had belonged to his grandmother, her mother. The adult James grimaced, remembering; one of his second earliest memories was the beating his father had given him for making his mother cry. Several years later, he had figured out how to put the radio back together, but by then it was too late.

'Always too late,' he thought absently, turning the greasy wire back and forth between his fingers.

"Did you fix it?"

James started at the sudden voice; he looked over his shoulder and saw Harry striding across the parking lot towards him. Harry must have been working in the kitchen before he had come outside; he had a streak of flour across one cheek and another one in his hair near his temple.

"You've, uh, got something here," he told him, and gestured towards his own cheek.

"Oh, it figures," Harry replied, and wiped casually at his face. "I made a batch of cookie dough a few minutes ago. It needs about ten minutes to cool before I can bake it, so I came out here to see how you were getting along. Did you fix it?"

"I think so." James showed him the wire. "Good thing, too. If this had worked its way into your transmission, you'd be looking at buying a new truck."

Harry looked at the wire skeptically. "A wire could do that?"

"In the right place, yeah, it could." James turned back to the engine and started pointing out other things he had noticed. "You need to change your spark plugs too, and refresh your transmission fluid, and then there's your radiator, that needs a flush too…" He trailed off, recognizing the slightly glazed look in Harry's eyes. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" he asked, amused.

Harry grinned and shook his head. "None at all."

"Don't you know anything about cars?" James asked, still amused but now slightly exasperated.

"I know how to check the oil," Harry said enthusiastically, and leaned over the truck's engine. "See, you unscrew this, and then…"

He kept talking, but James wasn't listening anymore. When Harry had bent over the truck's engine, his shirt had pulled up out of his pants, exposing a few inches of his back. James found his eyes riveted to the expanse of smooth skin, and the round knobs of Harry's spine that stuck out and cast tiny shadows across his back. Hardly aware of what he was doing, not even thinking about how he had grease and engine grime on his hands, James reached out and touched Harry's back, feeling the warmth of Harry's skin under his hand.

Harry stopped talking mid-sentence. He didn't move, but looked at James out of the corner of his eye. James slowly moved his hand down, slipping the very tips of his fingers under Harry's belt-line and gently caressing the skin there. He could Harry tremble slightly under his hand, and a shiver ran up his own spine. Harry turned to look up at him, and James thought he recognized the question in Harry's eyes.

Then a child shrieked in excitement nearby, and the spell was broken. Harry straightened back up, and James hurriedly dropped his hand. "You need a tune-up," he said stupidly, gesturing towards the truck engine.

"Can you do that?" Harry asked him.

"Yeah, of course," James answered, surprised and pleased to have been asked. "But I'll need more tools, and a lift, to do it right."

"We'll find a place where you can work on it," Harry said, and then he stretched upwards and kissed James on the cheek. "Thank you for your help," he told him, turning pink.

James smiled, feeling himself turn pink too. "You're welcome," he said, suddenly, achingly aware that this was the first time Harry had been affectionate towards him in public. This was the first time in a long, long time that anyone had been affectionate towards him in public.

Harry laughed, a nervous, embarrassed sound. "We should get back inside before Cheryl eats all the cookie dough and we don't have any left to bake."

James nodded, closed the truck's hood, and followed him across the parking lot. Halfway back to the apartment, he screwed up all his courage and caught one of Harry's hands in his own. Harry squeezed it in response, and they walked hand in hand to the apartment.

**3.**

Cheryl had not eaten all the cookie dough, but James helped her put a pretty sizable dent in it before Harry could shoo them both out of the kitchen and get the remaining dough in the oven. What was supposed to be three dozen cookies turned out to be twenty-three. And then neither of the cookie dough thieves were particularly interested in their dinner, although they did collaborate to finish off half the completed cookies and take over the living room with a raucous game of Mario Kart. On the plus side, Cheryl conceded to going to bed half an hour early.

When Harry came back into the living room after tucking Cheryl in, he found James deeply absorbed in the classified section of the local newspaper. "What are you looking for?" Harry asked, praying to himself that it wasn't an apartment.

"A garage," James told him. "I need to get your truck looked at soon." He shrugged. "And if I can use their lift and tools, show them what I can do, maybe it could turn into a job."

"That's not a bad idea," Harry said, feeling relief flood through him; James wasn't thinking about leaving. "That might be good for you, getting back into the work force."

James arched an eyebrow at him. "Tired of footing the bill?"

"Hey, don't worry about that," Harry told him hastily. "Money… isn't really a problem for me."

James grunted and turned back to the paper. "Must be nice."

Harry waited for him to say more, but James was either really captivated by the paper or purposefully ignoring him, so he went over to his computer and got to work. Somehow, knowing that James was miffed at him helped him finish the confrontation scene he'd been working on earlier.

Three hours later, Harry typed one last sentence with a flourish, saved his work, and then gave a quiet hoot of delight. "Twelve chapters!" He bounded out of his chair and dashed over to the couch, where James was dozing. "James, James!" he said, leaning over the back of the couch and lightly shaking him. "Twelve chapters, James! Twelve chapters!"

James looked up at him blearily. "What's important about twelve chapters?"

"What's important about twelve chapters? Let me tell you what's important about twelve chapters!" Harry did a ninja roll over the back of the couch, a move Cheryl had taught him a few months ago, and landed on top of James. James gave a little_ oof_ of surprise, but didn't seem to mind that Harry was sprawled on top of him and chattering excitedly. "Twelve chapters means I can send it off to my agent, and he can start looking for a publisher!" Harry grinned down at James and waited for his sleepy mind to make the connection.

"So… then it can get published, right?" James asked.

"Yes!" Unable to control himself, Harry grabbed James's face and kissed him. "This is the first book I've been excited about in a long time!" he announced, breaking off the kiss and pulling away, barely noticing as James leaned forward to make the kiss last a little longer. "I haven't been able to write anything really new in years!"

"What have you been publishing, then?" James asked, wrapping his arms around Harry's waist and gently holding him in place.

Hardly aware that he was fidgeting so hard he was practically vibrating, Harry told him, "Old stuff, stuff I wrote in college or between other novels. I've spent the last seven years cleaning up or expanding old stuff, but this new book is totally new, totally fresh." He suddenly burst out laughing, unable to control himself. "This is so exciting, I haven't felt like this in years!"

James chuckled. "I guess not. I've never seen you so manic before."

Harry leaned in and kissed him again, this time long and deep, making it last. He felt James clutch his lower back with one hand and bring the other hand up to cup the back of his neck. He could feel his excitement about the book be replaced with a different kind of excitement and energy, and underneath his hips he could feel James respond in kind. When he broke this kiss, he kept his face close to James's. "Thank you," he breathed.

"For what?"

"For helping me remember."

James grunted and tried to pull Harry back towards him. "Remember what?"

"Remember what life can be, instead of what it isn't." Harry caught James's slightly baffled expression and bent to kiss him along his neck. James tilted his head back along the arm of the couch and groaned softly, and Harry could feel his rapid pulse under his lips. "You make me happy," he said into James's throat.

"I don't make anyone happy."

Surprised that he had heard him, Harry glanced up and saw James was wearing his pensive, moody expression. "You make _me_ happy," he repeated.

"You've got bad taste, then."

Harry kept kissing him, moving up under his jawline and towards his ear. Moody or not, James wasn't pushing him away or responding in any way that indicated he wanted Harry to stop; if anything, he was holding him tighter. When he reached James's ear, he stopping kissing and whispered, "James, do you think I'm an idiot?"

James mutely shook his head.

Harry kissed his ear, then asked, "Do you think I'm smart enough to make my own decisions?"

A nod, and James's hair brushed across the bridge of Harry's nose.

Another kiss, then, "Do you think I'm smart enough to recognize bad things in my life?"

A pause, and then another nod.

Harry caught James's chin in his hand and pulled him around so they were eye-to-eye. "Then stop second-guessing everything and just accept that you make me happy and that I want you in my life." Before James could respond, Harry covered his mouth with his own.

It was James who broke off this kiss, and he did so to clutch Harry tightly against him, holding on with the frantic strength of a drowning man. "Just promise me one thing," he murmured.

"Anything."

"Never leave me. Never… make me feel alone." James choked out the last words like they had been caught in the back of his throat for a long time.

"I will care for you as best I can, for as long as I can," Harry told him from his position across his chest, and James relaxed his panicked grip and sighed deeply.

Harry thought for a moment, and then wiggled his way over so that he was wedged between James and the back of the couch. James started to roll over so they were still facing each other, but Harry stopped him with a hand on his chest. "No, stay like that. I want to try something." James reluctantly stopped trying to roll over, but he moved his arm around so that it was wrapped around Harry's shoulders and held Harry close against his side.

Harry took a few deep, meditative breaths. He had done this countless times before; why was he suddenly so gut-wrenchingly nervous? 'Because you've never done it to someone else,' his mind informed him, and he had to concede that point. However, he also knew that he and James couldn't continue the way they had been without both of them going crazy from frustration. With that thought in mind (that, and the fact that he was actually damn excited to try this), he slid his hand down the front of James's pants.

James tensed up beside him, but then relaxed with a gasp when Harry closed his hand around him. Harry, in equal measures terrified and elated, started making the same motions that had always worked for him in the past. James started to pant, and Harry could hear his heart speed up underneath his ear. Harry moved his head so that his lips were on James's collarbone and slowly started to quicken the pace of his hand.

When James finished, he arched his back so strongly that he lifted them both off the couch and gave a gasp that sounded like pure joy. When they settled back onto the cushions, he crushed Harry against his side, buried his nose in Harry's hair and breathed deeply. Harry let himself be held, not moving either his head or his hand, until James's breathing had quieted and his grip had loosened. When he looked up, he saw that James was staring at the ceiling, but his eyes were half-closed and his face was smooth and untroubled.

Harry shifted his body into a more comfortable position and fitted his face into the soft spot where James's neck joined his shoulder. "We should go to bed," he said quietly.

"Not yet."

Harry opened his eyes wide, wondering if James was aware that he was repeating himself. He glanced up, but James had closed his eyes and Harry couldn't read his expression. "Come on, let's go to bed," he repeated.

"Not yet. Stay with me, okay?"

"Okay." Harry nestled back down into James, but the warmth and sleepy contentment had fled from his body. He suddenly wondered how much James remembered from that first night, and if the repetition was only a coincidence.


	4. Chapter 4

1.

"I have a storage locker in Ashfield."

Harry opened his eyes, surprised. James was curled against him, tucked up under his arm, and Harry had thought he was asleep. Harry had nearly been asleep himself.

James's voice was muffled by his shoulder. "I have my tools in it. If we went and got them, I could fix your truck."

It had been almost a week since James had found a wire lodged in the truck engine, and Harry had nearly forgotten about him mentioning the truck needing a tune-up. Of course, Harry had had other things on his mind; he'd sent the beginnings of a book off to his publisher, continued writing like a whirling dervish, and fended off Cheryl's requests for a slumber party for her upcoming birthday.

"Uh, sure," he told James. "When do you want to go?"

James shifted a little and sighed. "I don't, not really." He didn't say anything else for so long that Harry thought he really had fallen asleep. "Tomorrow while Cheryl is at school?"

"Yes, that's fine," Harry answered, baffled. They'd had a few good days in a row, and he had been hoping that Moody James was being replaced by Happy James. No, that wasn't the right word; James was never entirely happy, but he had seemed more… content over the last few days. Harry had even caught him spontaneously smiling at Cheryl once, after she'd seriously beaten him at Mario Kart and was gloating. James's real smile was amazing in how it transformed his whole face; his eyes crinkled at the corners, his brow lifted, and ten years dropped away in an instant. Harry had been slightly envious for a moment (James had never smiled that way at him) before he realized he was being silly.

James sighed again and held him a little tighter. "Tomorrow then," he muttered, and then he really was asleep. Harry stared at the top of his head for a long time, troubled without knowing why.

**2.**

James insisted on driving the next morning, saying that he wanted to listen to the truck's engine as it went through the gears. Harry let him; he hated taking directions from a passenger, and he didn't know his way around Ashfield at all. Besides, they weren't going anywhere near Toluca Lake or the bridge. It wasn't that he thought James wanted to hurt him; it was that that place's pull seemed stronger on James and Harry wasn't entirely sure what he would be capable of if they got close. It was better to stay away, he reasoned.

James didn't say much on the way over, although he did tilt his head every time the truck shifted and cursed softly a few times when the engine lurched while going up a hill. Harry had no idea what he was listening for or why he was getting upset; the truck sounded exactly like it normally did to him. Eventually, lulled by the soothing growl of the engine, Harry leaned his head back on the seat and dozed off.

He dreamed about fog, thick, creeping fog that obscured his vision and ash that looked like snow falling in the middle of the summer. He was wandering aimlessly, looking for something and unable to find it, while the fog pressed in on him from all sides and bloody, crying things lurked in the shadows.

"Harry. Harry!"

He jerked awake, squinting and confused by the dappled sunlight shining on him. They were parked under a tree, and James was shaking his shoulder.

"You okay?" James asked, his forehead creased with concern.

"Yeah… yeah, I think so." Harry ran a hand over his face and blinked several times, trying to chase away the shadows left by the dream. "Where are we?"

"Ashfield."

"Are we at the storage locker?"

"Not yet."

Harry looked around. They were in an apartment building's parking lot, parked in the far corner, away from the buildings. The complex wasn't new, but it looked well-maintained. The cars in the lot were strictly working class automobiles, but they too were well-cared for and clean. Wherever they were, it was a solidly blue-collar neighborhood.

Harry looked at James curiously. "Did you used to live here?" he asked, suddenly aware of how very, very little he knew about James's past.

James shook his head and barked a short, humorless laugh. "No." He gestured towards the closest building's door. "My father does."

Harry jerked his head around and stared at the old man who had just exited the building. He could see the family resemblance: the old man was tall and thick through the shoulders like James, and had obviously been strong and powerful in his youth, although the years had not been kind to him. His eyes sat deep in their sockets and had enormous bags under them, like he hadn't slept in years. His hair was entirely white and cut in the short, bristly style that always reminded Harry of ex-Marines.

The old man slouched out to the sidewalk and bent to pick up a newspaper. He moved in the slow, careful way of the elderly, and put a hand to his back like it pained him when he stood up. He glanced around the parking lot, spit on the lawn, and went back inside.

Harry looked back at James. James's jaw was clenched so hard that Harry could hear his teeth creaking, his knuckles were white on the steering wheel, and his eyes had that dead, haunted look they'd had when Harry had first pulled him out of the lake. "Miserable old bastard," James whispered, and suddenly, violently put the truck into gear and screeched out of the parking lot.

Looking over his shoulder, Harry saw a curtain twitch in one of the apartments on the bottom floor of James's father's building, like someone had looked out too late to see them.

He settled back into his seat, watching James out of the corner of his eye. He hadn't known James had any family left, had never even thought to ask him. James gave off an aura of having been alone for such a long time that Harry had just assumed all his family was dead. In fact, he'd been half-convinced that James had been an orphan or a ward of the state.

"He never came back from Vietnam," James said abruptly, still staring straight ahead, jaw still clenched. "I mean, physically he did, but… he left part of himself over there. The best part," he added, glancing over at Harry. "My mom… she said he had been a good man before and that he could be a good man again, but… but she was wrong. Every time he hit her, every time he hit me, she was wrong."

"I'm… I'm sorry," Harry breathed.

"Why?" James asked accusingly. "You weren't there, you didn't have anything to do with it. You didn't ignore what was going on, you didn't pretend that we were the perfect fucking little family, you didn't actually fucking believe that I got bruises from playing or that my mom wore dark sunglasses to look stylish. You weren't there!" he shouted, and he punched the steering wheel so hard that the entire cab shuddered.

James lapsed into silence, breathing heavily and driving too fast, and Harry sat as still as he could in the passenger seat. He had never seen James this angry before, but this anger seemed, somehow, healthier than his usual brand of inward-directed loathing. This anger, at least, was righteous and justified, and maybe it would do James some good to get rid of it.

"He killed her," James said, his voice quiet again and almost conversational. "The bastard pushed her down a flight of stairs and she broke her neck. Fucker was drunk and didn't even remember what he was doing later, and the stupid police believed him when he said that she must have slipped."

"How old were you?" Harry asked.

James glanced over at him, and Harry recognized the raw, painful hurt in his eyes. "Nine."

"Christ, James, I'm so sorry."

"Stop apologizing!" James yelled, getting wound up again. "That's all anyone could say then, 'I'm sorry, James, I'm so sorry,' that and 'she's with the angels now.' Fuck the angels! No one looked after her when she was alive, no one would look after her when she was dead! She was so goddamn weak, couldn't protect herself-"

"Couldn't protect you?" Harry asked quietly, interrupting James's rant.

James stopped as suddenly as if Harry had slapped him. He opened and closed his mouth a few times like a fish, then roughly dragged his sleeve across his eyes. "She couldn't protect me, either," he said, speaking low and almost to himself. "She couldn't protect us from him, and eventually she stopped trying. If…" he paused for a moment, like the words were caught in his throat. "If he was hitting me, he wasn't hitting her," he said finally, and his shoulders shuddered from the effort.

Harry waited for more, but apparently James had said all he was going to say. Harry reached out to him, wanting to comfort him as best he could, but James swatted his hand away.

"Don't," he said brusquely. "Just don't. Not right now."

Harry looked out the window and watched the countryside pass by, giving James as much privacy as he could. He stared out at the passing farms, not really seeing them, and his heart ached for his friend (partner?), as painfully as if James's father had reached through time and hit him too.

**3.**

The storage lockers were desolate, nearly hidden in the woods. It was one of those privately run businesses that always seems like it's on the verge of complete and utter ruin. James guided the truck through the chain-link fence and past a guard station manned by a teenager who was either stoned or mentally retarded (possibly both), and stopped it at the end of one of the rows. He fumbled in his wallet for a key and then got out. Harry followed him, unsure of what else to do.

The locker's door rose with a creak, and spiders fled from the sudden, unexpected light. The locker was fairly small, and it was not full. Harry noted the dark, looming shapes covered with tarps in the center of the small space, but the walls stood bare.

James threw a tarp off from one of the shapes, coughing in the cloud of dust that rose up all around him. For just a moment, the dust reminded Harry of the fog in that place, and he was pierced by a sudden sadness that was not entirely his own. Then it settled and James stood in the center of the locker, looking quizzically at the metal tool cabinet the tarp had covered.

Harry watched as James thumbed open the combination lock and took out a few tools individually and looked them over. Even though he didn't know anything about tools, Harry could tell that gear like this was expensive, and that it had been an investment. The metal wrenches caught the dim light and flashed brightly at him.

"Where did you learn to work on cars?" he asked, suddenly eager to start talking again. The flash of metal had reminded him of something, something that danced at the corner of his memory, and he was desperate to distract himself, to let the memory dance away into the ether.

James turned around, holding a large wrench with both hands, and for a moment it looked like he was holding a weapon. "The Army."

"Really?" Somehow, Harry had never pictured James as having been in the military.

Smiling bitterly, James turned back to the cabinet and put the wrench away. "That surprises you?"

"Honestly, yes," Harry told him. "It's the hair, most former military guys have really short hair."

"Mary liked it long," James said, so quietly that Harry almost didn't hear him. "I signed up on my seventeenth birthday," he explained at a normal volume, "and the old bastard signed the papers to let me. Only good thing he ever did for me. Told me to go kill some ragheads when I went off to basic."

He started pushing the tall metal cabinet out of the locker. "Help me get this in the truck, would you?"

They spent the next half hour wrestling with heavy tool cabinets and getting them loaded into the bed of the truck. Actually, James ended up doing most of the wrestling and heavy lifting while Harry climbed into the bed and guided the cabinets in. James was remarkably picky about how they were positioned and how they were handled, confirming Harry's earlier thoughts that these tools were investments and valuable.

They had the biggest cabinets in the truck when James straightened his back with a crack, wiped his brow, and said, "There's just a couple more things I want to grab, then we can go." He went back into the locker. Harry fished around inside the truck's cab for the two water bottles he'd brought along, then accompanied him into the gloom.

James was holding an old radio. It was tall and the top was arched like a church's roof. Made of highly polished wood, it cast a mellow gleam in the half-light.

"Does it work?" Harry asked, handing James one of the water bottles.

James put the radio down carefully and chugged half the water before he answered. "Yeah, it does. I've been taking this thing apart and putting it back together for almost thirty years."

"It's beautiful," Harry said, and meant it. The radio was an elegant piece of artwork from a bygone era, and it belonged in a museum, not in a dingy storage locker.

James smiled at him then, his shy, disbelieving smile, and Harry had to fight down the urge to throw his arms around his neck and kiss him. "Thank you," he said. "Will you hold it while we go home? I don't want to put it in the bed."

"Of course!" Harry reached for it, and when he did, he stepped on a tarp that had barely been covering one of the tallest shapes. The tarp fell off with a rush and a sound like ghosts whispering, sending another sheet of dust into the air.

**4.**

The tarp had been covering a curio cabinet. For a moment, Harry thought that James must secretly be an antique-fancier, because the curio was beautiful. It too was made of highly polished wood, and the glass in the cabinet doors had the rippling appearance that old glass gets, meaning that it was original to the piece. Harry didn't know a lot about antiques (his wife had been the antique-er, he had just gotten dragged along), but he knew that original glass was very valuable.

"James, what's this?" he asked, stepping forward to get a closer look. There were a few picture frames standing inside the cabinet, but he couldn't make out the photos through the dusty glass. Harry went to wipe the dust off, but then realized that James hadn't made a sound since the tarp had fallen.

"James?" He turned around.

James was standing near the door of the locker. He was still holding the radio, but his head was down, his shoulders hunched inward like he was trying to protect himself from some unknown assailant.

"Are you okay?" Harry went to his side as quickly as he could, the curio forgotten. "What's the matter?" He put one arm around James's waist and gently supported the radio with his other hand; whatever was bothering James, Harry was sure that he wouldn't want the radio damaged. He seemed deeply attached to it.

James drew a long, shuddering breath and then looked up at the curio. "It was Mary's," he said. "Our wedding photo is in there."

Harry didn't know what to say. As it turned out, he didn't need to say anything; James gave him the radio, walked up to the curio and carefully opened one of the doors. Despite its stay in the storage locker, the door opened soundlessly. James took out a framed photo. He stared at it for a moment, sighed, and then handed it wordlessly to Harry.

Harry set the radio down carefully and took the frame in both hands. He examined it, noticing how it wasn't dusty at all. The photo had been taken at a courthouse, and not by a professional; it was slightly off-center and the colors in it were washed out. However, both James's and Mary's faces were clear, and it was these that he studied.

Mary was looking up at James, laughing. Her hair was a light brown that just escaped being mousy, and her features were somewhat plain. However, she was beautiful in that way ordinary people have when they are radiantly happy. James had an arm around her waist and looked younger and happier than Harry had ever seen him. The beaten slope in his shoulders, the haunted look in his eyes… these were gone, replaced by a simple, pure happiness. Harry again felt that subtle knife of jealousy twisting inside him, but then it was gone, replaced by a deep sadness for his friend. He understood what it was like to be this happy and to have it yanked away.

He handed the photo back to James. "She was lovely," he said simply.

James took it back and studied it mutely, and Harry suddenly had a vision of James studying this picture over and over again, for hours on every sleepless night, wondering when it had all gone wrong. He watched as James gently touched the glass near Mary's face, then carefully set it in back in the curio. He closed the door, and stood with his back to Harry, his forehead lightly touching the curio's glass front.

"I… I didn't tell you the whole truth about Mary… about her death," he said hesitantly.

**5.**

Harry gently took James's arm and tried to pull him out into the sunshine; somehow, he thought it might be easier to hear what was coming if they were in the light. The gloom and dust of the storage locker was a little too much like that place. James brushed him off and stayed in front of the curio, staring through the dusty glass at the framed photo.

"What didn't you tell me?" he asked, dreading what was coming but also eager to get it over with. Maybe, if James got this sickness, this poison, out of his system, he could start living again instead of just existing.

James answered him with another question. "Did you… did you see the red pyramid thing? When you were in… that place?"

Harry shook his head. "No, I didn't," he said quietly. "I saw… a lot of horrible things, things that gave me nightmares for years, but I never saw anything that looked like a pyramid. Why?"

James shrugged and put one hand up to the curio's glass. "It reminded me of my father," he whispered. He dragged his hand over the glass, making it squeak slightly and smearing the dust. Harry thought that the tracks his fingers made looked like claws.

"I couldn't find our special place," James said, his face still turned away from Harry. "I tried, I really did, but I couldn't find it, I couldn't remember. What kind of husband am I, if I couldn't even remember our special place from our honeymoon? Worthless, fucking worthless. Every time I tried to remember, and I tried and tried, all I could remember was what she looked like the last time I saw her."

He turned around then, and Harry saw the anguish burning deep in his eyes. He had never seen anyone look so haunted, so damned, before, and it hurt more than he could have imagined that it was James hurting so badly. "She looked like a corpse," James whispered, and his voice was as lonely as the wind between the stars. "She looked like something that had been dead for years already, except for her eyes. She was still so… so angry at me, like she blamed me for what was happening to her… I… I had some flowers for her, and… she screamed at me, told me she didn't want any damn flowers… and…"

James's knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor on the locker. He knelt there on his hands and knees, and Harry started to move towards him, but James held an arm out. "No," he said. "Don't… don't touch me. You'll be damned too."

Harry stood over him, and James gasped a few times, like breathing was painful. "And I couldn't take it anymore!" he burst out. "She wasn't getting better, the cancer turned her into someone else, someone I didn't recognize, didn't know, and… and… and I couldn't watch her hurt anymore, and I… I wanted my life back… she asked me to help her, and… and…"

"I killed her," he pushed out, and he looked up to meet Harry's eyes. Harry recoiled slightly, like James's burning gaze might consume them both. "I held a pillow over her face and I killed her. She's dead because of me."

James put his head back down and curled up in a ball on the filthy cement floor. "Why?" he rasped. "Why did you pull me out of the lake, Harry? Why didn't you just let me sink?"

**6.**

Harry stood over James, not wanting to believe what he had just heard. What James was talking about was murder; maybe not premeditated, maybe merciful, but murder nonetheless. No wonder that place had called him, and no wonder that he couldn't shake himself free from it.

A hundred thoughts and emotions raged through Harry's head and stomach, blurring his vision and weakening his own knees so much that he dropped down beside James and knelt next to him on the floor. He didn't know what to think, much less what to feel, so he just let the emotions wash over him; when they calmed down he would see what was left. Not really thinking, he put one hand on James's back, and felt the other man trembling under his touch.

One image, one memory, rose above the maelstrom in his heart. Harry, his eyes closed, saw his own father, his own father whom he had loved deeply, sick and dying of lung cancer, the same disease that had taken James's Mary. He saw his father wasting away, dying a little bit more every day, but never enough to finish the job. He heard his father asking him to help him end it, to help him make the suffering stop, and he felt the old regret that he hadn't been brave enough to help him and had made him go through with it until the end.

Harry settled onto the floor, crossing his legs underneath him. He gently tugged at James's shoulders, and James let himself be guided into Harry's lap, although he kept his face hidden and wouldn't meet his eyes. Harry stroked the top of James's head, and James wrapped his arms around Harry's waist with a feverish, desperate strength.

"I couldn't let you drown," Harry said quietly. "Then, afterwards, when I found out you'd been to that place too, I couldn't let you leave. I think… James, I think I needed you as much as you needed me."

James shook his head. "Don't say that, Harry. Please… please don't say that."

"Why not?" Harry asked, a little sharper than he intended.

James pressed his face harder into Harry's chest, and his words were muffled. "Because everyone who has ever needed me has died and left me alone." He looked up then, his eyes wet and red. "Don't need me, Harry. Don't ever need me, because… because I… I don't want you dead too."

James put his head back down and started shaking, shaking so hard it felt like he would tremble into a thousand little pieces right there in Harry's arms. Harry kept stroking the back of his head, not saying anything, letting James get himself under control again. Eventually, after what seemed like a long time, James did. He let go of Harry and sat up, wiping at his eyes, embarrassed.

"James," Harry said, unsure but knowing it needed to be said, "did you want to die that day at the lake?"

James gave a great, shuddering sigh. "I don't remember. All I remember is leaving that place, and driving away, and then… nothing. You, dragging me out of the water."

"Why are all of your things in a storage locker?"

James smiled grimly, and it was like seeing a skull that had had all the flesh picked clean. "Because if I didn't come back from that place, I didn't want the old bastard getting his hands on it. It would just… get sold and disappear."

Harry thought, turning everything over and over in his mind, trying to make sense of it all. "Do you… do you want to die?"

"Sometimes," James answered candidly, and Harry dragged in a sharp breath. "Sometimes I do, but other times… other times I want to play Mario Kart with Cheryl, and then lie on the couch while you work, and carry you to bed when you fall asleep in front of the computer. I want to live in your apartment, and be around you, and be around Cheryl, and… be normal."

"Which do you want more?" Harry was terrified of what James might answer.

James looked at him from under his thick blond hair. "I want to be with you more… more than I've wanted anything in a long, long time."

Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

"But," James added, cutting Harry's relief short, "I'm afraid. I'm so afraid that you'll wake up one morning and realize what a fuck-up I am and not want me around anymore. And I can't lose everything a third time, Harry. I _can't_."

Harry put his hand on the back of James's neck and drew him forward. James resisted a little at first, but then let himself be moved until his forehead touched Harry's. Harry looked deep into his dark green eyes, thinking almost wistfully about how it almost always came down to him pulling James in so they were eye-to-eye. "I already told you that I will care for you as best I can for as long as I can," he said, "and I meant it. Isn't that enough?"

James's eyes searched Harry's, looking for a trick, a loop-hole. Finding none, James closed his eyes, leaned in, and kissed Harry lightly. "Just enough," he said, sitting back.

Harry's lips burned with the heat of James's kiss; he felt like a dirty old man, but he wanted more, right then and there. He leaned in this time, and he made this kiss last until he felt a response stirring in James too.

"Hey! Hey, what the fuck!"

They jumped apart guiltily, and Harry squinted towards the light from the locker's door. The teenaged guard was silhouetted against the early afternoon sun.

"If you two queers are gonna make out, go do it somewhere else!" the teenager said testily. "This here's a respectable establishment!"

**7.**

James had climbed into the driver's seat, but his hands were shaking so badly he could hardly hold the steering wheel. Harry climbed in after him and nonchalantly pushed him into the passenger's seat; he thought he could find the highway again, and after he did that he could just follow the signs back to Portland. James agreeably settled into the passenger's seat and took the radio when Harry handed it to him; he told Harry to take it easy going up hills, then lapsed into silence, looking at the radio in his lap and running his hand over its smooth surface.

They were halfway back to Portland when James asked, shyly, "Can I lay down?"

"Sure, go ahead."

James carefully set the radio on the floor, and then stretched out. The truck's cab was too small for him to really get comfortable; his long legs were jammed up against the door and his neck was bent at an awkward angle, but he wrapped his arms around himself and sighed miserably.

Harry sighed too, and reached down to grab a handful of James's hair. "Come on," he said, tugging gently, "you can use me as a pillow."

James didn't say anything, but he shifted around until his head was resting on Harry's leg and he was in a slightly more comfortable position. "I'm sorry," he breathed.

"For what?"

"For everything."

Harry didn't bother to correct him, to tell him that it wasn't Harry's forgiveness he was desperately seeking, but his own. Instead, he put his hand on James's shoulder, gave it a light squeeze, and left it there. After a few moments, James reached up and caught Harry's hand in his own.


	5. Chapter 5

**1.**

James Sunderland was still a little confused about why he was in public with a grocery cart full of pink party decorations and plastic dinosaurs.

Harry had finally caved to Cheryl's request for a slumber party for her upcoming eighth birthday, but he had sent James out to get supplies under the guise of needing to work on his novel. That, and Cheryl had insisted on James accompanying her to pick out the decorations.

James had a sneaking suspicion that Cheryl knew exactly what she was doing when she had asked him to come with her; she had already gotten him to buy her an ice cream and then dragged him down the aisles with the sugary snacks that Harry wouldn't let her eat.

James eyed the processed snacks critically. He had survived on this type of food for most of his life, but somehow over the last month or so he'd lost his taste for it. He was a little surprised, but he realized that he was beginning to prefer food that was fresh and actually cooked. Another small gift from Harry.

Cheryl trotted over with a bag of Pixie Stix.

"Oh, no. No, we're not getting that!" The last thing James wanted was an apartment full of little girls hopped up on pure sugar.

"Please, James! They're really good!"

"Have you ever actually had one?" James was certain that Harry never bought them.

Cheryl pouted. "No, but Joanna from school says they're really good."

James took the bag away from her and put it back on the shelf. "Joanna doesn't know what she's talking about." He selected a bag of Peanut Butter M&Ms and handed it to her. "If you want really good candy, these are what you want."

She looked at the bag doubtfully. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. And trust me, I know candy."

"Okay." She tossed the M&Ms in the cart, then imperiously informed him that they needed more dinosaurs and fewer princesses; apparently, James thought with an internal smile, the dinosaur to princess ratio in this Princess-Dinosaur birthday party was severely out of whack. They put back some of the pink decorations and selected a few more green ones before Cheryl got distracted by a display of squirt guns. James actually had a few good memories of squirt gun battles when he was a child, and Cheryl didn't need to twist his arm to convince him that they needed a few in the apartment.

When they were at the cash register, James felt a pang of conscience about the squirt guns; he wasn't sure if Harry approved of toy weapons. "Whatever you do, don't squirt your dad with this when he's on the computer," he told Cheryl. "He'll get mad."

Cheryl looked at him in surprise. "Daddy doesn't get mad!"

"He doesn't?" As James thought about it, he realized that he never had seen Harry angry. Irritated and snappish, yes, but never actually angry.

"No. He gets…" Cheryl thought for a moment. "He gets disappointed. That's worse."

James nodded, surprised at her perception. She was exactly right—he had been on the receiving end of Harry's disappointment himself, and it was a terrible feeling, much worse than when he had been a child and his father had raged at him. Of course (and he could feel his cheeks turning pink at this thought), he felt much more strongly about Harry than he ever had about his father.

"Daddy is a lot happier now," Cheryl said off-handedly as they were walking back to the truck with their purchases. She had trustingly grabbed one of his hands in her own when they had gotten to the parking lot, and was swinging his arm gently in time with their strides.

"He is?"

"Yes," Cheryl told him, nodding sagely. "He likes having you in our house. He likes having slumber parties with you."

"Oh." Again, James wondered if Cheryl was good at lying or not, because he couldn't really believe what she was telling him. He found it very hard to believe that Harry wasn't tired of him yet and counting the days until he left.

Cheryl tugged on his hand to get his attention. When he looked down at her, he saw with alarm that her small face was creased and worried. For being adopted, she looked an awful lot like her father when she was upset. "I like having you in our house too," she said. "You're not going to leave, are you James? You're going to stay with us, right?"

James stared down at her, unsure of how to answer. "You… you want me to stay?"

She nodded feverishly. "Yes! Daddy isn't sad now that you're here." She reached up to him with both arms, and he bent to pick her up and hoisted her into the air in the crook of his arm. She put her arms around his neck and hugged him. "I'm not sad either," she told him seriously.

James was completely baffled. Either Cheryl was an exceptional liar, or she really meant what she was saying. "Tell you what, Little Bit," he said, trying to cover his confusion, "if I have to go anywhere, I'll let you know first, okay?"

She nodded in agreement. "But you'll come back, right? You won't stay away?"

"If you want me back, I'll come back," he assured her, silently hoping that this was a promise he wouldn't have to break.

She smiled and hugged him again. "Okay!" Then she looked around from her perch. "This is really high up! What's it like to be this tall?"

**2.**

As it turned out, Harry wasn't very pleased about the squirt guns, but they were allowed to stay after Cheryl, with James's help, demonstrated how much fun a squirt gun battle could be in the apartment's parking lot. Eventually, he even let himself get drawn into the fight, ducking behind parked cars and lying in wait with the best of them. It deeply amused James to discover that although Harry was fastest of the three of them, he couldn't aim worth a damn, and ended up getting hit more often than either himself or Cheryl.

"All right, all right! I'm done!" Harry finally called, walking out from behind an SUV with his hands in the air. "My gun is empty!" The upper part of his body was completely soaked, his hair in total disarray, but he was smiling and laughing quietly.

"We got you, Daddy!" Cheryl shrieked, running out from her hiding spot and throwing her arms around Harry's waist. "James and I got you!"

"You sure did," he told her, then looked up and caught James's eye. Harry smiled at him, a wide, pure grin, and James felt something move in his chest. What was this warm, comfortable feeling, this feeling of… acceptance? Was that what it was called? Was this what it felt like to be part of a family? James had always associated family with anger, pain and humiliation; being around a family as happy and normal as Harry and Cheryl was completely foreign to him, but he found himself wishing desperately that he could be a part of it all.

Brushing the strange thoughts aside, James walked over to them, his squirt gun dangling from one hand. He looked at Harry's damp, wrinkled shirt and messy hair, and realized that this was the most disheveled he'd ever seen him, yet Harry still managed to be poised and beatific.

Harry caught James staring, and his eyebrows raised in question. 'Are you okay?' he mouthed silently, clearly not wanting Cheryl to hear him.

James nodded. 'Fine,' he mouthed back, then, before he could stop himself, he reached up and smoothed some of Harry's wet hair back from his face.

Harry looked slightly surprised at the sudden tenderness, but leaned his head briefly into James's palm, his eyes closed and a smile on his lips. Then he caught James's eye and inclined his head down towards Cheryl. The message was clear: not in front of the kid.

James glanced down and realized with embarrassment that Cheryl was watching them both intently. He dropped his hand and took a step backwards.

Cheryl watched him for a moment longer, then shrugged her shoulders (a very Harry-esque gesture), and turned around so she was standing next to her father, one of her arms still around his waist. "Come here, James," she commanded, beckoning him with one small hand.

He reluctantly went to her, expecting a kick in the shins or some other small act of retribution for his advances towards her father. Instead, Cheryl slung her other arm around his waist and smiled up at him, craning her neck so she could see his face from this close angle. "See? I told you Daddy was happier!"

James winced, mortified. He kept his head down, afraid to meet Harry's eyes, and tried to move away from Cheryl, but she held on with a surprisingly strong grip. Almost as if she'd expected him to try and get away.

"You think I'm happier, sweetie?" he heard Harry ask, and he didn't sound upset. He almost sounded… amused.

"You are, Daddy!" Cheryl insisted. "You've been happy since James got here!"

James kept his face turned away. He could feel his cheeks burning and knew he was probably bright red; he hated how Cheryl had this uncanny ability to make announcements about what he and Harry were feeling, and the damnable thing was that she was usually right. On the other hand, when she said it, he and Harry didn't have to, and sometimes she managed to vocalize things that he was feeling but couldn't express himself.

"You're right," he heard Harry say, and he jerked his head up and looked over, but Harry was looking down at Cheryl. "I am happy," Harry said, and then he glanced up and caught James's eyes before James could remember to look away. There was tenderness in Harry's eyes, and kindness, and (dare he even think about this? No, he was being stupid, Harry had just been looking at Cheryl, this wasn't for him) even love.

None of them spoke for the few minutes; Harry held James's gaze so that he couldn't look away, and Cheryl beamed up at both of them. Then she announced, "I'm hungry," and the moment was broken. "Can we have pizza for dinner tonight?"

"Oh, I don't know. What do you think, James?" Harry asked.

James ducked his head again, grateful that his hair was long enough to hide his eyes from this angle. "Pizza would be great."

They walked back to the apartment, Cheryl with her arms still around their waists. Halfway to their building, Harry reached around Cheryl and gently put his hand on the small on the James's back. James chose not to think about how much these small gestures of affection meant to him and simply enjoyed the warm pressure of Harry's palm.

**3.**

The next day was Friday, and Cheryl was spending the night at a friend's house. She came home from school excited and noisy, wanting to change her clothes and then leave immediately for her friend's home. Harry wrangled her into packing an overnight bag and eating a light snack, then surprised James by asking him if he'd like to go to the park with them to meet Cheryl's friend and her mother.

"Why?" James asked, confused.

Harry shrugged. "It's a nice day. I thought we could spend some time out in the sun. I've been cooped up too long working the last few weeks."

James tried hard to hide how pleased he was to be asked, but he had the feeling that Harry knew anyway. Besides, it was true that they both had that pale, slightly sickly look of people who spent all their times indoors.

At the park, Cheryl and her friend immediately ran off towards the jungle gym, cackling excitedly, and Harry spent a few moments making small talk with the girl's mother. James was gazing off into space, not paying much attention to the discussion of PTA meetings and school projects, when he realized that the woman had asked him a question and he hadn't heard a word of it.

"Uh… I'm sorry?" he stammered, thinking that he must look like a total idiot.

"I asked how long you're planning on staying in Portland?" the woman chirped, and she looked at James appraisingly. Was she… was she checking him out? James had no idea how to answer her question, either the one she had asked or the one he thought he recognized in her gaze. What the hell was this woman's problem? He looked at Harry desperately.

"James is working out a few things," Harry filled in smoothly. "He'll be here for a while yet."

"Oh, I see." The woman nodded and smiled at James toothily, and he was vividly reminded of a shark that smells blood in the water. "Well, don't be a stranger, _James_. Now how did you say you were related to Harry again?"

Fuck. Oh fuck. How was he supposed to answer _that_?

Harry came to his rescue again. "James is an old friend. We went to high school together."

"Marvelous!" the woman trilled. "Old friends are the best ones!"

The two little girls came tumbling back then, and the woman escorted them to her minivan and drove off with a wave. Harry waved back, but James didn't bother.

"I don't like her either," Harry told him once the van was gone. "Cheryl and her daughter get along really well, though, so what can you do?"

"What is her problem?" James asked, glad that he wasn't alone in his dislike.

"Bored, unhappy marriage, the usual," Harry explained. "She certainly seemed to like you, though!" and he dug an elbow into James's ribs.

James grunted. "Not my type."

Harry smiled at him, and then gestured towards a nearby park bench. "Come enjoy the sunshine with me."

They sat on the bench together, and James took care to sit further away than he really wanted to, giving Harry his space. Harry hooked his elbows behind the bench's back, stretched his legs out in front of him, and turned his face upwards towards the sun. James watched him out of the corner of his eye, marveling again at Harry's easy elegance and smooth grace. James was certain that he'd look like a jumble of limbs and awkward angles if he tried to imitate Harry's posture, but Harry looked like a reclining demigod, like an artist's rendering stepped off a canvas. His eyes followed the line of Harry's jaw from his hairline to his throat, and he found himself wondering what Harry's skin would taste like under his lips.

James mentally shook himself. He couldn't keep doing this to himself, especially in public. Maybe Harry humored him at home and around Cheryl, but when it was just the two of them, James was entirely convinced that Harry would scorn any advances he tried to make. He cracked his knuckles, just to have something to do with his hands, and wondered what it was about Harry that made him feel like a fifteen-year-old virgin all over again.

"You shouldn't do that," Harry said, his eyes still closed. "It's bad for your joints."

"Maybe," James muttered. He had things on his mind besides arthritis, but he knew Harry was right. He dropped his hands onto his knees and squeezed.

Harry turned his head and smiled at him lazily, opening his eyes halfway. "What are you thinking about? You crack your knuckles when you've got something on your mind."

At the moment, James was thinking about how glad he was that his shirt was untucked, since it hid the bulge in his lap, but he wasn't about to tell Harry that. "You," he answered truthfully, and instantly regretted it.

Harry kept smiling but didn't comment, for which James was extremely grateful, and instead turned his face back to the sun. "I'm thinking about buying a house," he said quietly.

James started; he had not been expecting that response at all. "A… a house?" he said stupidly.

Harry nodded. "Yes. With the new book and everything, it's time. Cheryl needs more room, and a yard to play in instead of a parking lot. I could have a study instead of a desk in the living room." He paused for a moment, apparently deep in thought. "It's time," he concluded. "It's time for us to move out of that apartment and into a place of our own."

A place of their own. James wondered bitterly what that was like, having never felt it himself, except for the six weeks he'd spent in Harry's apartment. And now one of the only places that had ever felt like a home was getting taken away from him. He opened his mouth, ready to ask Harry if he thought the complex would let him take over Harry's lease (at least he could have the building, if not the people in it), when a woman pushing a stroller paused near their bench.

"Hello, Mr. Mason," she said stiffly, formally.

Harry opened his eyes to look up at her, then jumped to his feet. "Hello, Mrs. Kincade," he said, sounding strangely formal and polite. "How are you today?"

"Very well, thank you," she said, and glared at him. "I regret to tell you that Janice will not be attending Cheryl's birthday party."

"Are you sure, Mrs. Kincade?" Harry asked, and James detected a slight note of pleading in his voice. He frowned; that was extremely unusual, Harry didn't plead for anything. "Janice is Cheryl's best friend."

"Quite," she sniffed, and started to walk away. "It's not the kind of environment I want my daughter exposed to."

Harry flopped back onto the bench, all his grace and elegance gone, and sighed. "Cheryl's going to be heartbroken," he said quietly to James.

"What did she mean, about the environment?" James asked him, secretly pleased to have something else to talk about besides the house.

Harry groaned and spread his hands, palms up. "She thinks that because I'm raising Cheryl on my own I must be a pedophile who likes little girls."

"WHAT!" James was on his feet and chasing after the retreating woman before he realized what he was doing. A tiny voice in the back of his head whispered to him that this probably wasn't the greatest idea, but it was drowned out by the incandescent rage that swept through him. "Mrs. Kincade!" he yelled, and he saw her pause and look over her shoulder.

He skidded to a halt a few feet away and glowered down at her. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked quietly; he had never hit a woman before in his life, but at the moment he was strongly considering it.

Her face blanched of color and she took a step back. "I… I'm sorry?" she asked.

James could feel Harry tugging on his arm, heard Harry telling him it wasn't worth it, but it all seemed far away, like the memory of a dream. "This man," he said, gesturing to Harry with his free hand, "is an incredible father. He has never touched Cheryl and would never hurt her. He lives his whole life for that little girl." He paused, dimly aware that Harry had stopped pulling on his arm and that the woman was looking at him with an expression he didn't recognize. "He's a good man and a great person, and you only wish your husband was half the father Harry Mason is," he finished lamely, his anger suddenly spent as he realized how foolish he was acting.

The woman stared at them for a few moments longer, then nodded curtly and continued on her way, albeit considerably faster than before.

James turned to Harry, all his rage gone and replaced by shame. Harry was looking up at him, his face blank and inscrutable. "Shit, Harry, I'm so…"

Harry dropped his arm, whirled around and started back towards the truck without a word. James jogged after him, certain that this was it, Harry was going to kick him out. After behaving the way he had, James knew he deserved it, and he only hoped that Harry would be kind enough to let him get his tools out of the apartment first.

At the truck, Harry got into the driver's seat and started it up roughly. James slunk into the passenger's side, his head down and his shoulders hunched. "Harry, I…" he tried, but Harry threw a hand up and held it out at him in an unmistakable gesture.

"Not right now, James," he said, his voice clipped and curt. "Wait." He got the truck in gear and pulled away from the park.

James cringed in the passenger seat, miserable and depressed. He'd finally gone and done it; he'd finally shown his true colors to Harry and now he was going to be left alone. Again.

**4.**

Harry drove home without saying another word, and James was too sad to try and talk to him. He did notice that Harry parked the truck in the furthest corner of the complex's parking lot, far away from all the other cars and relatively private, but he thought that if Harry was going to hit him, he wouldn't want any witnesses. James found that he expected Harry to hit him, to beat him, and he almost welcomed it, because it meant Harry would touch him one last time.

Harry parked the truck, turned it off, and turned to James. James shied away, raising his hands up in a blocking gesture dimly remembered from his childhood. Harry batted his hands away, and moved across the truck's seat and onto James's lap. He straddled him, caught James's face in his hands, and kissed him hungrily.

James froze for a moment; of all the ways he expected Harry to react, this was the one he hadn't dared to hope for. He blinked a few times, expecting to wake up from this hallucination, but Harry didn't fade away. He stayed on James's lap, warm and heavy and unmistakably real, and he was still kissing him, his lips and tongue exploring the crevices of James's mouth. Harry had never kissed him like this before, and James's misery was suddenly and completely replaced by desire, desire like he hadn't felt in years. He moaned and pulled Harry closer to him, and fervently kissed him back.

They groped at each other like a pair of horny teenagers for a few minutes until Harry pulled away with a gasp. "No one… no one has ever stood up for me like that," he panted, his hands on James's chest, resisting James's attempts to pull him back in. "I've been fighting pedophile rumors for years, and no one… no one ever stood up for me like you did."

James grunted and pulled on him a little harder, wanting to kiss him again. "She's a stupid bitch," he murmured, knowing that Harry wanted some kind of response.

Harry nodded. "Yeah, she is, but… dammit, James!" and he was kissing him again, and sliding his hands up underneath James's shirt to caress his chest. James responded by pulling Harry's jacket off and tossing it on the driver's seat. He was going for the buttons on the front of Harry's shirt when Harry opened the truck's door and tumbled out into the parking lot.

"Not here," he breathed, heavily, looking ruffled and flushed and extremely desirable. "Back in the apartment…" and then he was jogging across the parking lot, not looking back.

James took a few minutes to compose himself (frankly, he thought he would have had trouble walking across the parking lot anyway in his present condition), then locked up the truck and hurried to the apartment.

The door was slightly ajar, and he slipped in and shut it behind him. As soon as he did, Harry lunged out at him from the hallway and pushed him up against the closed door, his hands in James's hair and his lips on James's throat. James enfolded him in his arms and bent down so Harry could reach his mouth. Harry pressed himself up against James and moaned deep in his throat.

James was having trouble processing it all. He couldn't believe that Harry was completely losing his cool like this, being so aggressive and so… so needy. James realized with a start that it was usually him who needed Harry, and this role-reversal was as delicious as it was unexpected. He tried to pull back a little bit, put some distance between them so he could unbutton Harry's shirt, but Harry wasn't having it. He ground up against James, nearly climbing him like a tree.

James couldn't help it; he started laughing at the absurdity of it all.

Harry immediately stopped kissing him and looked up into his face. "What?" he asked, disheveled and slightly out of breath.

"You," James told him, still laughing.

Harry's face fell and he took a step backwards. "You want me to stop?" he asked, crestfallen.

"Oh, no," James said, and he bent at the waist and picked Harry up, tossing him over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. "I just think we should go somewhere else," and he started towards the bedroom.

Harry, draped across James's back, dissolved into helpless laughter. "Put me down, you jackass!" he ordered between laughs, and started flailing ineffectively on James's back. James stopped for a minute to secure Harry's legs so he couldn't kick him; the last thing he wanted at the moment was a hit in the groin. However, Harry showed no inclination to kick, and kept laughing and beating on his back.

"Stop it!" James warned, trying to sound menacing, but even he could hear the laughter in his voice. "You're just making things worse on yourself."

"Yeah, I'm really scared, put me down!"

When he got to the bedroom, James tossed Harry onto the bed and then dove after him. The mattress squeaked under their combined weight, and James caught both of Harry's wrists in one hand and held Harry's arms pinned above his head. He slipped his other hand under Harry's shirt and started feeling around, marveling at the lean muscle definition and understated strength of Harry's torso. Harry writhed underneath him but made no move to try and escape, even angling himself for easier access when James started unbuttoning his shirt.

James had his shirt open and was running his lips over Harry's chest when Harry said, between gasps, "When we buy a house, we can do this every night if we want to."

James stopped cold and looked up at Harry, certain he had misheard him. "We?"

Harry opened his eyes and met James's, looking slightly confused. "Well, yes, you're coming too." Catching James's expression, he added, "Aren't you?" with a note of panic in his voice.

"If you want me to," James said, still not quite believing he had heard correctly. Harry wanted him to come with him? Wanted him in his new house? He wasn't just going to be brushed aside, discarded, left to fend for himself again?

"Oh, for God's sake," Harry muttered, and he suddenly wriggled out of James's grasp. Before James was even sure exactly what he was up to, Harry had flipped him onto his back and was straddling him again. James normally hated being dominated, it reminded him too much of his father, but somehow Harry made it seem caring and gentle and very, very sexy. Harry put his hands on James's shoulders and held him back on the bed. He leaned in close, almost within kissing distance, and whispered, "Yes, I want you to come with us. Yes, I want you in my new house. Yes, I want you in my bed. Yes, I want you in my life. Yes, yes, yes… what more do you need?"

"Everything," James breathed, and Harry kissed him.

**5.**

Afterwards, as James lay curled across Harry's chest and enjoyed the warm, sweaty and slightly sticky afterglow, the phone rang.

Harry gently pushed James away and reached for it, saying, "It could be something about Cheryl," when James tried to pull him back in. He sat at the edge of the bed, his back to James and answered the ringing phone.

"Oh, hello…. yes… yes… of course not…"

Knowing that if anything was wrong with Little Bit Harry would be halfway out the door by now, James leaned in and started kissing the knobs of Harry's spine. Harry arched his back into James's lips, but he kept the phone to his ear.

"Yes, I realize that… okay… no, no need for that…"

Smirking to himself, James kept up with the kisses (now nearly to Harry's shoulder blades), and snaked one hand around to stroke Harry's stomach. Harry swatted his hand away, but he was distracted enough that James was able to sneak it back after only a few moments. This time, Harry left it alone, focusing on the phone call, and James, feeling bold, moved his hand up to his chest.

"Yes, thank you… okay, we'll see you soon. Thanks again, goodbye." Harry sighed and hung up.

"Who was that?" James asked, his voice muffled against the back of Harry's neck.

"Mrs. Kincade."

"Shit!" James jumped backwards, aghast. "I didn't get you in trouble, did I?"

Harry shook his head, his back still facing James. "No, you actually got me out of it." He put the phone back in its cradle and eased himself back onto the mattress. James stayed sitting up, looking at him worriedly.

Harry smiled and beckoned to him. "Come here," he invited, and James obediently lay down next to him, snuggling up against his side. Harry put his arms around him and sighed again. "She actually apologized. That's amazing, Margaret Kincade never apologizes to anyone."

"What did she say?" James asked, finding that he didn't really care all that much, now that he knew he hadn't gotten Harry in trouble.

"She said that she was not aware that I was a homosexual and with that in mind, Janice will be happy to attend Cheryl's birthday party," Harry said, mimicking Mrs. Kincade's formal speech patterns.

James opened his eyes wide in the dim light, and propped himself up on one elbow so he could see Harry's face. "Is that what we are now?" he asked, feeling confused and angry and relieved all at the same time. "A pair of fags?"

Harry shrugged and met his eye. "First of all, that word is in poor taste. Secondly, what do you think? Do you feel gay now?"

James thought about it. He hadn't been looking at other men, but then, he hadn't been looking at women either. He hadn't really looked at anyone in a long time, not until Harry had come into his life. Maybe, and it felt like a tiny ray of light entered his chest at this revelation, maybe it was just Harry, and he would feel this way about him whether he was a man or a woman or something else all-together.

"I… I don't feel like a fa-, uh, gay," he said doubtfully. "I feel like the same old me, except… better. Happier. More alive than I've felt in a long time."

Harry pulled him back into his arms. James leaned in close, nestling his face into the soft, comfortable spot where Harry's neck joined his shoulder. "Then that's all you need," Harry told him, his voice quiet.

"But what do we tell people?" James asked.

Harry didn't answer for a few moments. "How about that we're in love?"

James raised his head and looked down at Harry. Harry's face was serious but kind, and when James looked into his eyes, it was like coming home.

He put his head back on Harry's shoulder and brushed his lips on Harry's neck. "That sounds about right."


End file.
